Tag Archives: Concours d’Elegance

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We recently had the very special treat of attending the Old Glade Antique Tractor Show, perched on a picturesque hillside in Abingdon, VA. At first glance, the similarities between an antique tractor show in the Virginia hills and our usual coverage of an event like the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance seem few and far between. Sure, the items on display are old and the vehicles on display have 4 wheels, a motor and some curious designs – but beyond that how could these two events be more dissimilar?

In fact, these sorts of events have more in common that you would think. While most of the collectors probably don’t have bank accounts to rival the GDP of a Central American country, these folks are every inch as passionate about their vintage tractors as are the owners of a prestigious piece of racing history. They know the provenance of their machines, the nuances that make their tractor unique, and they have a high opinion of what their equipment is worth. It’s often said you can tell you’re at a concours by the garish and stylistically confusing coloring of participants pants, and so too you find a distinct wardrobe at an antique tractor show – consisting mainly of crisp blue bib-overalls and straw hats.

So, what is different you ask – there is an order of magnitude separation in the value of these vehicles for starters. A pristinely restored 1950s Ford Jubilee Tractor, for example, will set you back about $5,000 – but even a bargain-basement concours-level entry will set you back 30 times that amount. In other words, if you were so inclined to sell just one of your concours cars, you could fill up an entire barn with top-notch antique tractors – in-so-doing have one of the best private tractor collections in the country – and still have enough loose change to buy yourself a few dozen acres to play farmer with. Tempting, isn’t it… Or, if you’re like me and don’t have $200,000 burning a hole in your pocket – getting into the world of tractor collecting could prove both profitable and enjoyable. For a boy with rural roots and a love of the country, I thoroughly enjoyed the day spent with these genuine and kind antique tractor enthusiasts.

Check out all the fun in the galley below! As always, please feel free to download any photos you like – and if you enjoy our photos, please share this blog with your friends and help us spread the word!

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It has proven a very busy week between a few shoots, a few meetings, and a ton of work on post-Concours distribution and promotion. But more on that once things settle down. For the second year in a row, McLaren had a presence at the 2014 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance – and for the second year in a row, we’ve had the pleasure of providing photography coverage for them! A lot of people would say that the main event of the Concours is the awards ceremony, but I bet the majority of the people in the picture above would beg to differ – several hundred people gathered to see the unveiling of this beautiful P1.

But that wasn’t all. With McLaren’s 50th anniversary underway, the manufacturer had its own class, filled with unique and stunning racers from the first four decades of McLaren. As with previous years, we used our ND filter to capture some unique full-sun time exposures such as the one above. Also new to the field in Amelia was this stunning example of McLaren Special Operations – the MP4-12C below has over 20 unique elements that make your car stand out from a ‘regular’ McLaren (as if they needed any help)… All in all, it was again a wonderful pleasure to shoot for the McLaren.

As always, please feel free to download – and if you enjoy our photos, please share this blog with your friends and help us get the word out!

The 2014 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance is here! Well, at least it was 16 hours ago… After another dose of sleep deprivation, I fear this post may be completely incoherent, but we all know you are mostly here for the photos and free HD desktop wallpaper anyway, right? Now that we’ve got that settled – take a look above to see the scene that greeted us this morning – it’s one of BMW’s awesome art cars enclosed in an LED lightbox and set at that wonderful time just before sunrise where the colors are so vibrant.

As we began to work today, the stunning lines of this 1939 Horch 930 S Streamliner (above) arrested my attention as it pulled into its spot. Turns out, it was awarded best of show – and after spending about 10 minutes photographing the car, I certainly can understand why. Below is another awesome example of the diverse collection the Concours staff bring together each year. I am remissed to say that I never took a look at the placard on this one, so if anyone know’s what this turn-of-the-century truck is, feel free to share with all of us!

As always, please feel free to download – and if you enjoy our photos, please share this blog with your friends and help us get the word out!

The 2014 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance has outdone itself. Sleep deprivation will keep my thoughts brief, and probably more or less incoherent to boot. The second annual Cars and Coffee was a marked expansion over the inaugural event last year, with nearly twice as many cars and what looked like about three times the guests. There were some great cars out there – some rare, some more familiar, but all interesting to look at. On the way up, I had the pleasure of driving just behind one of these cars and couldn’t resist taking a few slow speed shots (above).

Today also saw a very exciting and quite entertaining RM auction, as well as the first public showing of the Lamborghini Huracan in North America (below). All in all, a tiring, but amazing day at the event!

As always, please feel free to download – and if you enjoy our photos, please share this blog with your friends and help us get the word out!

The 2014 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance is now in full swing. Friday marks the first full day of Concours activities, including the Porsche Driving Experience (above) which includes a Porsche autocross, a high-speed run with racers including Hurley Haywood, and tours of some beautiful private car collections. Want a small taste of the event? Check out our photos from the event in the gallery below. After the tour, we returned to The Ritz-Carlton and spent some time shooting for our friends at McLaren, as well as photographing many of the other great manufacturer displays. As we were leaving, we also stumbled upon the beautiful 1914 Mercedes-Benz 115HP (below) as the folks at Mercedes were wrapping up a shoot of the car. They graciously let us take a few photos as well.

As always, please feel free to download – and if you enjoy our photos, please share this blog with your friends and help us get the word out!

The 2014 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance is underway! Thursday is when things begin to pick up steam at the Ritz-Carlton with RM’s Auction Preview open to the public, as well as open doors to the retail shop and antique signage store. Jaguar also began their test drive schedule early this year – featuring a rather loud Union Jack liveried F-type convertible, among other cars. Also spotted today was the quite splendid BMW i8 in a really rather stunning electric blue (below).

As always, please feel free to download – and if you enjoy our photos, please share this blog with your friends and help us get the word out!

If you’ve followed our blog for a while, you probably know my favorite shoot of the year is coming up this weekend – the 2014 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. This week, I’ve been up at the Ritz-Carlton with AAA, photographing a wonderful event they put on at the resort, so I had the privilege of seeing the area transformed into a car lover’s dream and all the great cars rolling into the resort. Check out some of these amazing cars in the gallery below!

As always, please feel free to download – and if you enjoy our photos, please share this blog with your friends and help us get the word out!